


The Moral of This Story

by WildChildrenRoamHere



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, One sided, Sorta wincest, alluded to mutual feelings, alwaysagirl!sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 05:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildChildrenRoamHere/pseuds/WildChildrenRoamHere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Winchester runs away to college and realizes that she's a lot more fucked up than her life was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moral of This Story

   My first word wasn't even really a word. It was half a word. Two letters, half a name. But it was the most important name in the whole world.

    "De."

     Sometimes, when he'd had a few more beers than Dad would allow, were he home, Dean would tell me or the unfortunate girl he'd brought home, the story. It was a no name motel somewhere outside of Salt Lake City, three months after the fire. I was nine months, almost to the day, when I apparently woke up from a bad dream and cried out "De!”

     It makes sense, really, since all my life I'd never known his absence. Never reached for another hand to hold, or looked to anyone else for support. Dean was the one who changed my diapers, made me bottles in dirty motel kitchenettes, and rocked me to sleep at night and kissed away the bruises from learning to walk, learning to fight. Dean—big brother, best friend, protector, caretaker, home, love, and safety—of course his name would be the only word I'd know.

    Dean says it was the only word I knew—the only one I needed, really, but I'll never say that—for weeks on end. He says I said it the way some children said "no". I'd scream it, whisper it, say it calmly, and cry it out in frustration, joy, anger—“De” was my answer to everything, and if I'm being completely honest, it still is.

     The truth was that Dean, for all that he completely drives me insane, was all I had. All I ever had. Dad wasn't around, and when he was, he was drowning himself in books, booze, and obsession. There was nothing left in him that knew tenderness—if there ever was. My big brother had raised me since he was four years old—he'd had no choice.

     So yeah, it makes sense that the first thing to come out of my mouth would be to call out to him. To ask him to come to me—and he did. Four year old Dean Winchester got out of bed and climbed into the crib to hold his little sister through the night. And since then, it was just the way it worked—I called, he came.

     But that was before, wasn't it?

      Before I packed a bag, stuffed all the things I owned into a nylon case and zipped it up, flashed a bus ticket at my father’s face and tried not to look to the left, where the only anchor I'd ever had threatened to keep me underwater, where my lungs felt close to bursting after 18 years of gritty motel carpets and the Impala's leather seat sticking to my legs. My whole life I'd had no home other than Dean, and now I was leaving him.

    I tried to justify it in the weeks that followed—said that it wasn't healthy, that life. That I'd never wanted it in the first place, it was Dad's war. Not mine. Not Dean's. I told myself that it was the only way—that I'd be happy this way. That I'd be safe.

      The last one seemed laughable those first weeks. The farthest I'd been from my brother for more than a week was a room away. There was something about all the empty space that felt wrong and terrifyingly unknown. But how could I tell myself, let alone my roommate when they asked, that I couldn't sleep at night because a part of me was missing. Because I'd left it behind along with knives and guns and ghosts? That without the sound of his breathing whispering from close by I couldn't know which way the world was moving, because how could I know it hadn't stopped?

     It was when I was away that I realized that the pure and simple truth was hardly ever pure and simple at all. It was the middle of my pre-law lecture that I knew, with utmost clarity that I was, am, so absolutely and completely fucked up, and that it was for the best that I had left, and each reason started and ended with Dean.

      My whole life, the world had revolved around Dean. I knew everything there was to know about my big brother—knew how many freckles there were on his face—that there were twice as many on his shoulders and down his back. I knew all the reoccurring nightmares he'd ever had. Had all his scars memorized, the one on his upper thigh that came from the first time I handled a knife, the one across his stomach from a werewolf that I'd spent two hours cleaning and stitching and wrapping—and three more cussing out dad until I had a black eye and a fractured cheekbone. I knew all his cheesy pick-up lines that he used on girls in no name towns, girls he'd never call. I knew the exact process of the way he'd done his hair since he was ten. I knew his most ticklish spots, and each and every way to get under his skin. Dean was the only thing I'd ever loved—but somewhere along the way, without me noticing, it had become wrong.

       Since I was a little girl I'd known that I loved my brother, but my life was so distant that I had never learned to build limits in my mind. So when I was curled around the emptiness inside of me that felt Dean shaped, when I was picturing the exact way he looked as he woke up, traced the outline of his lips as they spoke my name in my mind, I realized something.

    I was in love with my brother.

::

     I met Jess after midterms, when my roommate, Melissa, insisted that we go out for drinks after our last exam. Really, all I wanted was to sleep for sixteen hours and try to think about anything other than "History of Law".

    The only bar on Campus was cramped, dark, and so hot I felt like I could drown.  By whatever fuck you, Sam in my genetics, I hadn't gained the insane height the rest of my family possessed—so Melissa had forced me into a pair of heels, leaving me to totter around on the floor, evading hands and flying drinks. The only blessing was that Melissa didn’t seem to care how I’d gotten so good at making Fake ID’s.

      This was never my scene. This was Dean's forte—bars filled with drunken women, all too easy to sway towards the handsome young man with the pretty green eyes. Me? My place had been the nameless motel rooms, tucked back into seedy side streets in cities I'd forgotten to keep track of, waiting for Dean to come home from bars just like this one.

      In situations such as that, I always imagined Dean at my side—his hands wrapped around mine, calloused fingers twining together, showing me how to move. He'd smirk in my mind and I'd copy the movement, learning the way to seem like a real person, and not a cheap imitation that had learned from watching through the windows of a moving car.

    I was doing just that, when Jess, the force of nature that she was, all golden hair and green eyes, long limbs that contained a sort of grace I'd only ever seen on things that wanted to eat me from the inside out, collided with me.

     "You're beautiful." The words made me pause made me stutter to a halt—Dean vanishing from the corner of my sight. No one had ever said that to me. Boys at high school dances that wouldn't remember my name in two weeks called me "hot" asked me to show my tits, told me I was "sexy" before they'd even learned what the word meant. Bobby had ruffled my hair, told me I looked like my mother, which, I suppose, was the same thing. Dad had avoided my eyes, reaching for the bottle of whiskey instead of my hand when I came home, blown all the wrong ways by a girl who called me "fugly" in the eighth grade. Dean had stared for a few moments too long some mornings, when I'd push my hair behind my ear, dance to a song on the radio—he’d smiled and said "Nothing. Just saw something." when I'd ask what was wrong. I had never heard those words though—never directly. Only ever from mouths that seemed like they were dodging bullets.

     My response was thick with doubt when I said, "Says the freaking supermodel."

She'd laughed, her whole face lit up with it. She was the second most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

::

    Jess and I moved in together on our 6 month anniversary. The apartment was small, boxy little rooms all painted a smothering white, with cold floors and leaky windows. It felt like trying to put on strangers clothes—there was too much fabric and I looked silly wearing it, but I tried to feel more at home, for her, for me—because this was what I’d always wanted. Wasn’t it? Jess walked around like she'd lived here her whole life, as though she'd already become acquainted to each creaky step on the way up and all the drips in the paint. This apartment was hers already, and it fit her, as day by day she came home with posters and curtains and plants tucked into the crook of her arm. Some days I’d walk in our bedroom and find her sitting cross-legged on the bed, tongue between her teeth as she painted designs on the wall with her nail polish.

      There were moments, then, when I'd look around and see her, and forget to be startled. She wasn't abnormal anymore. She felt real, she felt soft. I'd never felt soft before. Dad was always hard looks and hard discipline and hard muscles and Do as you're told, Sam. Uncle Bobby was always rough, rough beard scratching against my face, rough voice from the whiskey as he snapped Idjits, rough hugs when Dad wasn't around to yell about spoiling us. And Dean... Dean was the only one in the world who'd ever looked at me like I was precious, and that was rare. Always when he thought I couldn't see. But there were times, few and far between, when, if it was cold, or there wasn't enough food, or Dad had been gone a few days too long, or I'd gotten hurt—Dean would crawl into bed behind me and hold me against his chest, let me breathe in his scent, gunpowder, leather, and apple-pie-filling.

      But Jess—Jess gave me affection like it was nothing. She'd slide her hand into mine while we walked, or lean her head on my shoulder—she gave me kisses like they were made of air—as though there was nothing special about them. Each time she'd press her lips to one of my scars, I jumped, always having had a different mouth kiss where it hurt—but now, now I belonged to Jess, my scars were hers to kiss—Dean's lips had no place in my life, were never meant to be mine, or for me to want them, and I tried to forget them.

      Still, when we laid in bed together, I'd shift to the far side, close my eyes and curl up in a tiny ball—in my head, I'd never left home, Dean was lying beside me because Dad hadn't had enough money to get two beds this time around, and his breaths were letting me know that the world was still moving the right way.

::

    Jess liked pixie sticks. I'd walk through the apartment and find little bits of powder and scraps of paper from her savagely ripping them open with her teeth. That's one thing I remember vividly.

     Her nails were always red. She said she was too pale, needed something to make her colorful, to which I'd laughed and told her that she was the most vibrant person I'd ever met.

     Sometimes she'd dance. It wouldn't be for any real reason, she just enjoyed it. She'd turn on this indie crap music, lots of flutes and Indian riffs—and she'd dance around the living room, curls swinging. Her hips would move like water, her head falling back as she lost herself in the beat. In those moments, when I'd lean against the wall and just watch her, just being Jess—This unstoppable wrecking ball that had smashed through my life and left me in a world that had been suddenly changed and I would realize again and again, I loved her.

     I still think of those things—every day.

     Jess made me feel like life was moving too fast, like the whole world had started shifting under my feet, trying to catch up with the stars. She was an essence all of her own, a huge entity that had grown up out of the darkness of life without Dean. I couldn't get a hold on her as she rapidly shifted and grew, showing me new marvels every day. I felt as though there was a pattern forming here. I always loved the beautiful, the ones that didn't even realize that they could have the whole world—that I'd tear anyone that was keeping it from them limb from limb, if only they'd ask.

::

    The dreams started a month before.

    They were always the same, hot and wet and red—bitter blood filled my mouth and yellow light infested every corner as the only safe thing I'd ever loved burned to ash in my mother’s place.

    The first night I woke panting, sweat pouring off of me as I shook convulsively. Jess was there, blessedly still asleep, her lips parted, breathing out and moving a little curl over her nose up and down. I don't know how long I sat there and watched her breathing, but when the sun rose I finally got up and took a shower, pressing my face against the cool porcelain tiles—Dean’s voice repeating " _It was just a dream, Sammy._ " in my head like he'd always done, all my life.

      She knew there was something wrong, she always did. I was a good actor, but she was an insightful person—and she paid attention. She knew all of my tells, ones that not even Dad had picked up on over the years. She knew when I twisted the copper ring on my middle finger, a gift from Dean that had once fit at the base, but now didn't get past the knuckle and had long since shed its silver color. She knew when I licked my lips, or pulled my sleeves down over my hands, like I was so uneasy I didn't even want my hands to be seen. She knew when I went out on jogs, 5 a.m. training drills that were still, despite my complete loathing of them, second nature. She knew when I started wearing the faded Led Zeppelin t-shirt that strained across my breasts but hung too loose in the shoulders that I'd stolen from Dean the night I left.

      "You're worried about something." She'd said one day, early in the morning as the sun streamed through the window and lit up her hair like gold. Her hands were wrapped around a cup of coffee, her green eyes still squinted and sleepy, her lips set in a sour pout. She stared at me, face unmoving, challenging me to disagree.

      "I have a big test coming up." I lied, my voice hitching slightly. I'd always hated lying to her—when she asked about my family, my home, my life in general.

     "That's bull." I shrugged, not denying it, and left, pressing a long kiss to her forehead before I walked out the door.

::

     I was born again with a noise. A scuffle of heavy boots against a wooden floor in the dead of night.

     I sat up, stiff, alert—every bit the hunter my father had always wanted me to be. Jess was still asleep by my side, which was good, because if she'd woken she wouldn't have gotten me, she'd have just gone to deal with it on her own. I didn't ever want to think about that, so I didn't let myself—I just slid from the bed, perched on the balls of my feet, leaning forward and moving silently through the apartment.

     The shadow, lithe like a blade through the light from the window, passed by the doorway to the living room, pausing for a second in front of a picture of me and Jess from our one month. I pounced, my arms quick and sure as they locked around the stranger’s neck. The guy stiffened and grabbed onto my forearm, spinning me around and dragging me off by my shoulder. I grunted and sucker punched him in the gut; he groaned and kicked my leg to one side.

   I fell hard, the stranger dropping after me like an executioner's blade, and only when his face passed into the light from the street did I realize who it was.

     "Dean?!" My voice was all wrong—too high and breathy and vulnerable. I swallowed thickly as his face broke out into his typical panty dropping smirk, and I felt it like I always had, always denied, wanted to split myself open and wrap around him and keep him with me always. Instead I said, "You scared the shit out of me."

     "Yeah well, that's because you've gotten slow." Never one to allow Dean to be right, I wrapped my legs around his hips and shoved. He groaned again as he landed on his back, me sitting triumphantly on top of him. "Ok. So maybe not." He rolled his eyes up at me as I pretended to toss my hair. "Yeah, Yeah, Sammy. Off."

      My stomach curled into a warm ball around the name, feeling like I'd swallowed a sparkler as it tingled through me. I was never Sam, not even when I was alone. I was always Dean's, Sammy.

      "It's Sam." I said anyway, and rolled off of him, dragging him to his feet.

      The light flicked on and Jess was there, eyes wide and confused, hair adorably sleep mussed. "Sam?"

"Jess—this is Dean." I said, my face growing hot. I'd always avoided Dean when I told her about my past. She knew I had a brother, knew his name, but nothing else about him. To Jess, Dean was a giant gaping hole out of my life, even if she didn’t know it.

      "Dean, like your brother Dean?" She asked, stepping forward, as if to see him better. I nodded, my hair falling forward. It had always been long, had never seen a pair of scissors in my whole life—but now it was almost all the way down my back and was almost always in buns, the one I was wearing was falling so I pulled it out, shaking my hair like a mane.

       "Yeah." Dean smiled all charm and green eyes. "I'm Sammy's Big Bro. She been saying nice things?" He asked, his arm snaking around my shoulders and pulling me against him. I stopped breathing for a moment, his scent filling me up to the brim. He still smelled the same, like my childhood, like the Impala, like homemade pies at Bobby's. Dean smelled like home because he was home.

      Jess's face was shifting; she stood in open space, unsure of whether or not to come closer. Dean sensed this, amusement flaring in his eyes as he pressed me closer to him, my curves mashing against the straight, steel line of his body. This was Dean reminding me of what was in my blood. Him.

      Or maybe I was just going crazy.

      Dean released me and stuck his hand out to Jess, Winchester charm that he'd learned from Dad, all smooth smiles and smoldering eyes, on full blast. "Didn't think my geeky little sister had it in her to pull such a babe." He winked, snatching her pale hand as she raised it hesitantly. I could see the blush start in her cheeks and hated the surge of jealousy that was aimed at the wrong person. I should not be jealous of Jess, angry at her for stealing the brief attention I had managed to gain—I should not be starving for more of his touch after this two year self-imposed-isolation from my life.

      She wasn't wearing much, a cropped shirt with a smurf on it and a pair of boy shorts. I could tell she felt exposed, as she flicked her eyes up and down the imposing length of my brother and backed away.          "Let me just go put something on."

     "No, no, I wouldn't dream of it. Seriously." Dean winked. Finally the side of me that had claimed Jess as the one thing that wouldn't be sullied by the toxic waste of my past kicked in. I slid between them, my palm pressed to his stomach, a silent "back off" as I wrapped my arm around Jess, my fingers digging into her hip lightly.

       "What are you doing here?" I asked accusation thick in the air. Dean dropped the teasing, his eyes focusing in on my face instantly. This, this was familiar, but I still felt like climbing back into my bed and pulling the covers over my head, hiding from those eyes and the way they made me fall apart inside.

     "I need to talk to you. In private." He shot a look at Jess, as though suddenly she wasn't wanted. She'd gone from an angel to a snotty child that was standing in his way. The possessive anger warred with my intense desire to follow Dean out to the car, to slide into the Impala and feel his warmth bathing me from the other side of the car, to be wrapped in the deep gravel of his voice, just for a moment.

       I pulled Jess closer, my movements suddenly jerky and slow. "Whatever you need to say, you can say it in front of Jess." I said, my chin tipped up, back ramrod straight, eyes challenging him. He saw it, I saw the annoyance, but also the pride and what looked like relief in his eyes as he decided.

     Dean's eyes shifted from my face to the walls of the apartment, the Led Zeppelin, Maya Angelou, Sylvia Plath, and The Doors—countless posters that we’d spent hours scouring for, that papered every inch of the white paint. He looked at the pictures of us, of our friends, of Jess' parents, the one, faded, soft edged picture of me and Dean—Me barely 5 years old, Dean 9, sitting on Bobby's front porch, holding giant glasses of lemonade, Band-Aids on my knees and a smile on my face as I looked at Dean, as Dean smiled at the camera. I had the same picture taped into a small folder, hidden like contraband in my nylon duffel bag that still smelled like the Impala, along with all the birthday cards Dean had made me, the ticket stubs from concerts, movies, the other pictures that had managed to survive our childhood. Then he glanced back to me, straitening his spine.

      "Dad hasn't been home in a few days."

       I snorted, my face twisted with derision. Of course he hadn't. Typical. "So he's working a miller time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later. Don't get your panties knotted up, princess." I started to turn away, Jess still tucked into my arms, silent and observant through this odd experience.

        "Dad's on a hunting trip, and hasn't been home in a few days." Dean's voice was hard, angry—and the words dropped into my stomach like rocks as the fear abruptly filled my throat. Flashes of blood and broken bones, torn clothes and twisted metal, the coppery scent of life flowing into the bedspread as I sewed my father’s skin closed with a curved needle passed before my eyes like images in a horror film.

       But, I think even then, I believed my Father to be invincible. How could John Winchester be anything but? Six foot two of solid muscle and hard brown eyes that saw clear through monsters and into the depths of hell—he was an unmovable mountain of will and anger—nothing could kill him, nothing that I'd ever seen.

      I looked at Jess, knowing that she'd never understand, and nodded towards the bedroom—her eyes were soft as she nodded back, squeezing my hand as she left.

     When she was gone, I turned back to Dean. "Why are you telling me this?"

::

     Jess watched me pack, the worn nylon of my bag scraping against the comforter. "Where are you going, again?" She asked, her fingers twisting the hem of her shirt.

     "Out to the cabin. I shouldn't be gone long." I avoided her eyes, a deep stirring guilt swallowing me whole. She narrowed her eyes, wide awake now, not fooled by me in the slightest.

As I stood to leave, my bag slung over my shoulder, knives scraping against the lining like nails against a chalkboard. I couldn't help but feel like the weight of my duffel was the weight of my life, the heavy weight of Dean waiting outside, his eyes turned to the building, cutting through the bricks to track every move I made.

    "Be safe." She said, her voice soft, calculating. I turned toward her, the bag sliding from my shoulder as I pulled her up off the bed, sealing my mouth over hers. She tasted like what I would imagine sunlight to taste like. Vanilla lip gloss, smeared over her mouth every day, the faint tang of chalk dust from her end of term project. I tangled my hands in her hair, feeling the soft curls twist under my fingers. Something in my heart screamed her name as I pulled away, but then I was leaving. Out the door, down the stairs.

    Dean was waiting in the Impala. The soft sound of rock music flowing over me like honey, erasing the past two years of my life so that Dean could've been picking me up from school, or a friend’s house, college just a dream on a fading horizon, Jess a dream I'd dreamt to cover the tang of confused longing I felt whenever my legs brushed his in the backseat of the Impala, the cramped bed in the two bedroom shack Dad called a hunting cabin.

      He turned to me, eyes full of shadows, and the twinge of abandonment a sliver of ice working its way into my chest. I knew, that what had passed in the living room was all joy, it was momentary, a burst of bright yellow glee that had overtaken us like children—but it didn't erase the gaping hole I'd ripped in the already thin fabric of our family two years before.

      I slid into the passenger seat; feeling the world right itself, flake off the illusion of safety I'd been living in the tiny apartment four floors above.

::

     Dean pulled me out of a fire twice.

      In the moment, while my hysterical mind was still reeling, my arms still burning from leaping up onto the bed and wrapping my arms around her—trying to pull the only safe thing I'd ever love away from the echo of my Mother's death, I'd wondered if he thought it was ironic.

      As he wrestled me down the stairs I clawed at his back with bleeding hands, screaming her name over and over, calling desperately—but she wasn't Dean, so of course she did not come. By the time we tumbled onto the sidewalk, still choking on sulfur and smoke and blood I had begun to say "De" over and over, my face mashed into the leather of the jacket that Dean got for his sixteenth birthday—a hand-me-down that he treated as though it was made of gold. His arms were solid around me, the only thing keeping me from falling apart—from allowing my guts to pour wetly from my body and splatter all my tainted blood on the concrete.

      By the time the ambulance came, Dean had carried me to the car, his arms still around me, my face pressed into the hot skin of his throat, tears sliding into the collar of his shirt. I knew, somewhere deep in the bowels of my mind that they were searching the apartment, that they'd find nothing—because they hadn't before. Mom, and now Jess, had been burned up, down to ash and dust—nothing left but the ache in my stomach, the emptiness in my heart, and the searing pain in my savagely burnt hands and arms.

      When the police had pulled away, the firemen had folded up their hose, and all the first responders had left—I slid out of Dean's arms, Jess' face flashing over and over in my mind. Jess dancing, Jess painting the walls random swatches, Jess braiding my hair, Jess making coffee, Jess drawing me with charcoal stained fingers, Jess kissing me, Jess' soft hair that always smelled like Chai tea, Jess' eyes hooded with lust, Jess waking slowly, Jess—Jess—Jess.

      I was wrong.

      It was never only Dad's fight. It was Dean's too. Mine too, now more than ever. I could see my Father in my head, the only thing that wasn't Jess, I could see the way he'd always stared at me like I was trying to shove a knife through him, like every second spent close to me was a moment spent wrapped around a ghost. I could hear the muffled cries of "Mary" late at night, when the alcohol all but drowned out his blood—and I finally understood.

::

     I tried not to let Dean hear, but I'm sure he did. I spent weeks shoving my face into pillows to muffle the great, heaving, wet sobs that wouldn't stop. Each night, when I could manage to sleep, my bandaged hands tucked up against my chest like a wounded animal, I'd dream of Jess. Of her sunshine hair and her candy red nails trailing down my spine. I dreamt of her voice, whispering to me the first night we'd slept in the same bed, her slightly tipsy beliefs and childhood memories standing out in relief against all the things I never got the chance to tell her. I always woke, sobbing wordlessly into my pillow, until finally my breathing would calm, and I could hear Dean, the bed creaking as he tossed and turned—always a restless sleeper, his breathing steady and quiet in the dark. I would grab onto that, wrap myself in the sound of it, allow it to pull me in like waves off the sea, a current I'd never really managed to out swim.

     We spent our days driving, the road passing under us, yellow lines flashing by as we headed east—the only mission to lose California in the rearview. The Impala rumbled under me and I dug my nails into the leather seat, my eyes tracing the ragged S.W D.W carved into the door of the passenger side by 7 and 11 year old hands wrapped around knives that would always be too big, too heavy with implications.

       Dean kept the radio on, loud music blurring the past and leaving the future unclear, allowing me to breathe as he sang along, all the musical solos too—because as he firmly believed, it just wasn't a good enough song to bother singing if you didn't want to try to get it all in.

      Those first six months, I rediscovered my brother. I relearned his habits, and watched him do his hair the same way he had since he was ten, I copied his sure stride, trying to find some piece of myself here, and was unprepared when I found all of me in his presence. I found a little more of myself each time he tossed me a boxed salad, bitching about my "lady food" and sneering when I turned up the occasional Nirvana song. I found old habits, the systems of my life—remnants of me that I'd marked as "before" tucked into the folds of the leather seat under me, in the pockets of my jeans, the creases of Dean's leather jacket—all of it coming back to me, slowly.

      I fell in love with him all over again, but this time I knew it was happening. I pushed and shoved uselessly against the swell of it as we circled each other like wounded animals, the hurt still a shadow in his eyes, my wrongness flowing around us like water. I fell in love with the way he tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, with the way he spoke when he was drunk and tired and bleeding, the way he sometimes mumbled my name in his sleep. I fell in love with the way he walked, his shoulders rocking like a boat on the sea. I fell in love with the way he watched me when he thought I couldn't see him, afraid I'd break again, like I'd fall back down into that hole that Dad had never managed to climb out of. I fell in love with the gentle, fleeting touches to my back, my shoulders, and whispers of skin over cloth as he reached for me, just to assure himself that I was still there.

        One day, waking slowly from the first dream that didn't leave me burning and drowning at the same time, I found Dean curled around me—the hunting cabin we had momentarily claimed as our own was freezing outside of our little bundle of blankets and body heat. It was like the two years I was gone didn't count—like they had all been a bad dream, and we were just waiting for Dad to come through the door and tell us to pack up.

      From that day on, I started being Sam Winchester again, folded up the delicate dreams of normality I’d fostered as a child, tucked the memories of Jess’ sunshine hair and the sweet little mole next to her eyebrow into the deepest parts of my pockets—told myself to stop reaching for them. I busied myself by counting the smile lines around Dean’s eyes, the number of grey flecks in the emerald pools.

      I felt a little more like “Sammy” each time he said it.

::

     Sioux Falls always looked the same. It was full of dust and dirt and rusting metal scattered all around Bobby's property. The massive house loomed over us as we pulled close, and he was already there—having heard the rumble of the Impala as we drove up.

      Dean swung open the door and Bobby was already talking, his eyes lit up like they always were when we came as kids. I slid out of the car, flushed with shame as Bobby fell silent. When I was eighteen and burning up with my own anger at my father, my self-righteousness, my goal, I hadn't thought of the only other person in my life. I had forgotten that in leaving home, I was leaving Bobby too.

      "Sam."

    And like magic I was swept up into a hug that felt of rough beard scraping my face and tight squeezes. I felt like crying, like clinging here, like going back in time to my eighth birthday, when Bobby made me chocolate cake and went out to the store and bought me all the Disney movies ever made on VHS and I made Dean stay up all night to watch them with me, and thinking it was worth it, even when Dad came to get us the next day and reamed us out when he found us tangled together on the couch, the TV screen nothing but snow.

      When Bobby finally pulled away, I glanced back at Dean and saw the flash of hurt still there. I wondered how long, how many years glued to his side, it would take to ease the abandonment. I wondered if it would ever be enough.

      "Come on inside, ya Idjits." Bobby said gruffly, nudging me toward the door. I moved through the memories of this house like dust motes that swirled past my face. I saw Dean teaching me to ride a bike, me, four years old and tottering unsteadily on two wheels, calling out to Dean in triumph. I saw Christmas's that Dad was never in, Bobby wearing a Santa hat after one too many glasses of whiskey, his voice deep and gruff as he sang Christmas carols—badly. I could remember the time I'd gotten chicken pox, when I was 12, and gave it to Dean, could remember how we'd stayed locked up in Bobby's spare room, slathering calamine lotion on each other late into the night, bickering in hushed voices.

     Bobby didn't ask many questions. He knew better, could see the thin barrier that was keeping me standing—could see the same haunted look in my eyes that he'd always seen in my fathers. We sat around the scarred oak table and they spoke with an easy familiarity that I had lost in the two years I'd been living a fantasy. It seemed like the whole world had shifted, like I'd slept through an earthquake.      But then, remembering Jess, I realized I'd just been living through a different one.

        Bobby kept firing words at me, telling me things,   news from friends I'd managed to make in hunter families. All those names meant nothing to me now though, and I began to wonder if anything outside of this house, Bobby and Dean and the Impala had ever meant anything at all. While I thumbed the bottom of my empty beer, watching Dean speak in quiet, thick tones, I realized that no, none of the places I'd been, the boyfriends and girlfriends that had lasted no more than a month at a time, that I'd cried over leaving, the swim teams and track teams, the choirs, the friends I thought made my life better while we lingered in one place in the space of a breath, never meant anything—not when I came through a door to a place I'd never see as home, to the only person I ever would.

     When Bobby finally shooed us off to bed like we were still children and not 24 and 21, it was nearly two in the morning. The stairs creaked in all the same places, our boots scuffing quietly across the worn wooden floors, our hands trailing the walls.

       The door to the room had the same S.W D.W carved into its surface as the Impala's passenger door.     Back when we were children, it was the only place we owned. This room with the wide, musty double bed, the fading posters bought with spare change and Dean's charming smile, wobbly chest of drawers that we'd divided equally, but somehow our clothes always ended up mixed. This room, we could say was our room.

     I paused there for a moment, my fingers tracing over the carving. I could feel her in me, the little six year old who had sat on Dean's shoulders to reach the middle of the door, tongue stuck between her teeth in intense concentration as she marked the wood, claimed it for hers. Hers and Dean’s. She was still here, had been shoved into the box named "before" and now she'd slipped out and was flowing through my blood stream like a cancer.

      Dean's breath was warm and damp against the back of my neck, watching the path of my fingers as they round the curve of the D. I don't think I could ever imagine what he was thinking right then, I don't think I'd ever want to. We stood there in the darkness, the chill of late September closing in around us, leaking into the thin shirt I was wearing, sneaking along the back of my neck, a few hairs trailing from my bun and tickling the vulnerable skin there. The moment felt fragile—Dean's usual impatience held at bay, his breathing slow.

       I closed my eyes, the overwhelming weight of the last year crashing over me like a tidal wave, and had to resist falling back against Dean, letting him carry me the way he always had before. In this room, with the door locked against monsters and bad dreams and judgment from kids who didn't mean anything—here, Dean and I had lain tangled together in our innocence, faces soft in sleep, where no worry could reach us, where the second Dad pulled away, we were suddenly children—all at once, we were not warriors anymore. I never was, but Dean? Dean was a hero. He was Batman, and I was the little girl he had to save over and over because she had never learned how to save herself. She still hadn't.

      "I'm sorry." The words tumbled out into open space, falling like atom bombs into the peace we had managed to create, shattering the illusion of wars ended and forgiveness. This place, this was one of the places that the rift had torn apart, had rent in half, the same way that I could never bear to glance at the back seat of the Impala, I had no strength to open this door.

    In my mind the moments flashed past like flipping pages of a photo album, Eight years old learning to fire a gun, Dean's hand on my back, supporting me after the recoil nearly blew me off my feet. Six years old, having my first real fight with Dad over wanting to go to a friend’s house afterschool, Dean holding my hand while I steamed and ranted and screamed at the walls. Ten years old, falling during a hunt, into an open grave, breaking my leg in six places and biting clear through my lip when Dad set it and drove to the hospital, Dean playing with my hair and whispering in my ear, making me laugh even though I was embarrassed and in pain. Twelve years old, finding blood between my thighs for the first time, screaming so loud the walls of Bobby's house shook, Dad, Dean, Bobby and Pastor Jim kicking in the door searching frantically for a monster that wasn't there, and, upon seeing me, all but Dean too wimpy to bend down and explain; Dean helping me clean up, pressing gentle kisses to my forehead, my cheeks, even though I was crying and sniffling and so mad because this was obviously all Dad's fault and now I had to wad up toilet paper while Pastor Jim went and bought _Ladies supplies_. Sixteen years old, Harvey Marks kissing me for the first time on the football field as we cut across to walk home in some meaningless pit stop of a town in Indiana—Imagining Dean's face and pulling away, flushed and confused, refusing to talk to Dean for days. Eighteen years old, Dean's face when I pulled out the bus ticket, the acceptance letter—the look in his eyes when I tore apart the only thing he had—our tiny, broken, haunted family.

    "I'm sorry that I hurt you, sorry that I left you. I was so wrapped up in myself, in my own dreams; I forgot all that you'd given up for me—all the times you'd given every bit of yourself to me. I was selfish and I was so blind. I hated dad so much, wanted to be safe and happy and not feel like I was hunted, instead of the other way around. I was tired of Dad looking at me like I was _her_ —like she was haunting him. I never once thought about you, and I'm sorry." I cut off with a wet sob, suddenly unable to speak. Dean's breathing turned ragged against my neck and then his arms were around me—crushing me to his chest, breathing harshly into my hair as he struggled to keep me from shattering into a million pieces.

       Silence.

       "I missed you every hour." Dean's voice was barely a breath against the back of my neck, the top of my spine, and I tried not to dwell on the intimacy of the action. "And you know what the worst part was? It caught me by surprise. I'd catch myself looking into the passenger seat, the next bed over in shitty motel rooms—just because I'd remembered something you just _had_ to hear, Sammy. Or because I wanted to hear that little huff you do when you think I'm the most annoying thing ever. But you weren't there." He paused, his breathing going ragged again—and I could feel it. I could feel the pain he'd felt, could feel it ripping me open just like it had done to me when I thought I could never come back. "Every time, it was like getting the wind knocked out of me. It was like watching you walk out the door over and over again—like losing a fucking limb. My best friend, my fighting partner, my sister, my fucking _everything_." He choked and I could feel a tear drop into my hair. Dean never cried. Never. "So tell me how sorry you are. Tell me one more time, how _fucking_ sorry you are for taking everything. For _leaving_ me. Because sorry is just a word, Sammy. It doesn't mean shit." And then his arms weren't around me anymore, and I was crumpling to the ground, my knees slamming into the wood hard. I sobbed, but   Dean was already closing the door in my face, leaving me behind. Just like I'd done to him.

        I slept on the couch in Bobby's living room that night, listening to the bed creak above me, where Dean tossed and turned, and walked over my head. Neither of us slept.

::

     We left Bobby's three days later. In all that time, I didn't see much of Dean, but it wasn't his entire fault. Every time he was in the room I had the tendency to want to burst into tears. It wasn't good for either of us to linger near each other; both of us knew it would either end in violence or tears. Maybe both.

    It was three days of silence. Of Bobby glancing between one of our retreating back's and the others impassive face, his eyes full of sadness, of regret. Three days of curling around my knees on Bobby's lumpy couch, trying to ignore the Dean shaped emptiness inside as Dean wandered around the upstairs bedroom. Neither of us slept well those three days.

     Finally, Bobby got sick of us. "Go kill something, before I kill one a ‘you." He'd grouched, shoving a folder into Dean's chest. As I turned to follow Dean to the car Bobby grabbed my arm and reeled me into a tight hug. "Dean loves you, Kid. You gotta know that." And I swallowed the urge to ask are you sure? Does he? I know he'll never love me like he used to. Never love me like I wish he could.

      When I slid into the Impala, Dean was impatiently drumming his fingers on the wheel. As soon as my door shut he was pulling down the road, the car bumping over the road like a roller-coaster. I dug my nails into the leather and didn't dare glance to the backseat—a place, like the room, I was no longer entitled to.

      I wasn't worthy of the times we'd spent wrapped around each other, my bony shoulders tucked into Dean's skinny chest, when Dad was too drunk to get to the next motel. The times I'd quizzed him on Latin phrases and rare plant species while he fired back "How to Kill" drills. The long summer days of playing poker with cheezit's and spare change. The hours we'd spent amusing ourselves with "wordless communication" drawing words into each other’s skin, whispering the phrases back like some morphed version of "telephone". None of those moments were mine anymore. I had given them all up. Shoved them into that box that kept cropping up, the one with thick blocky letters spelling out "BEFORE" and tossed it into the back of the closet of my dorm room at Stanford. Left it there when I moved in with Jess. Lost it, like I'd lost everything else. Like I'd lost Dean.

      After three days it had stopped being hurting. It had become feeling nothing at all.

::

_I am so cold. I have been without the sun for so long that I don't remember its warmth, its light. It is so dark here, I can't see a thing. I feel like I cannot breathe, the darkness won't let me. I need the sun, but I've closed the blinds. I'm so cold. I can't find the windows. I'm sorry I closed the blinds. I thought I wanted to dream. I can't breathe. I'm so sorry._

     "Sammy!" Dean stood over me, shaking me. Fear was etched into every premature line on his face, the one's he'd seen grow on our father, and, having always dreamt of being a Hero too, took up a knife and carved them in. His hands wrapped clear around my upper arms, fingers over lapping and in my foggy, sleepy state; I wonder what it would be like to be able to hold the whole world like Dean's hands could. "Sam!"

     I reached up, desperate to stop the shaking. It felt like my head would come off if it kept going one more second. I was so exhausted, wrung dry from strange dreams of dark rooms, missing the sun. My hands closed over Dean's shoulders, so small in comparison of the dark grey swell of them under his Tee-shirt, and Dean stopped shaking me, his green eyes flashing with worry.

       "You were crying in your sleep. Having a terrible fit—yelling my name." He said, awkwardly drawing away. I mourned the loss of contact, the only instance of it we'd had in almost a week.                 My hands slid from his shoulders, fingertips catching on the ripples of his shirt.

I rubbed my hands over my eyes, watching the patterns burst behind my eyelids, fighting back the suddenly powerful urge to cry. Winchester's don't cry, Samantha. My father echoed in my head. But I wanted to. I wanted to cry like the child I felt like right then, like the little girl Dean had raised, had loved unconditionally. I wanted, more than anything, to go to sleep and wake up two years in the past, to tear up my bus ticket. To do it all differently.

Instead I mumbled, "I'm ok, De." my voice thick. From between my fingers I saw him stiffen at the old nickname, one I hadn't used since the fire. I wanted him to nod, to accept it, go back to bed across the three foot divide so I could go back to sleep—could listen to him breathe and pretend everything was ok.

      He stood there a moment longer, unsure—balancing from foot to foot the way he did when he had something to say. He opened his mouth to say something, but apparently thought better of it and turned back to his bed, throwing himself down onto it.

I curled around the Dean shaped emptiness that I was coming to terms with having to live with my entire life, and closed my eyes. If Dean heard the choked little whimpers, he didn't get up again.

::

     The hunt was too easy for us. A salt and burn—too well practiced for a Winchester. The ghost of an old woman who’d been clubbed to death by her money hungry son, even in death, feeble and inconsistent. We moved like a well-oiled machine, muscle memory leading the way.

I’d forgotten this. This, being in perfect synch. When he moved, I was already shifting to accommodate. When he lunged, I was already covering. We spun like gravity was holding us together, partners. Our father used to talk about it to other hunters with stars in his eyes. Said it would make us deadly one day—I don’t think he ever thought of it quite this way though.

     I was feral. The ghost would move for Dean and she would already be flying apart, packed full of rock salt. My body moved without me telling it too, destroying her again and again as Dean dug—until my arms ached from slashing through her with the iron crowbar when the shotgun ran out of shells. Not once did she get near him.

     Finally, when she had gone up in flames, the animal that had taken root in me gushed out and I sunk to my knees, falling back on my butt as Dean wiped his face. He looked down at me, looking up at him—and he nodded.

      After that—things crawled back into a semblance of normalcy.

::

      The first thing Dean said to me after the hunt was: “You did well.”

I froze, nursing my aching wrist in the passenger seat. When I was young I wasn’t allowed to do much on hunts, especially after breaking my leg. It had been a stupid mistake, but Dean had doted on me for months while it healed—it was the only time in our lives when Dean ever gave our father even the slightest attitude. He’d ignored him for weeks and weeks, eyes going steely whenever he passed through the door to the small house we’d rented while I healed up. It was a long time ago, but right then, in the car, still aching and bruised and sad over losing my best friend—I took comfort in the memory.

      Since I hadn’t been allowed to do anything on hunts, I’d busied myself by learning in theory—books were always more my speed anyway, even if I despised the material—but this wasn’t about me. It was about protecting Dean if ever the need arose. And on that hunt, with Mrs. Bronwyn screeching after Dean with handfuls of nails and chunks of rock, it had.

“Thanks.” I said my voice rough. I hadn’t spoken very much as of late, knowing that tossing words into the open space would have been useless. They’d never reach my brother, even if he was only sitting less than a foot away.

       “I’ve never seen you in the Zone like that.” He said, his eyes darting to me. I turned my face to his as we passed under the glow of a streetlight. For once, his face wasn’t closed off—stiff with anger and determination. “You were all... Zen.”

     I couldn’t see myself as he probably had—because in truth, the only thing that mattered was protecting Dean. Was keeping him alive, and she would’ve killed him if she’d had the chance. Where else would my mind have gone, if not back to those books—back to the hours I spent studying the way my father taught my brother, the way my brother taught me.

      “You were in danger.” I answered simply, and looked away again. I could feel his eyes on me, heavy with unspoken words. The air was thick, choked with things neither of us would say, shadows of hunts passed, years where I was nothing more than a memory for him—and him a fever dream for me. We wouldn’t say those things out loud. I had too much to lose. Dean was ever prideful, uneducated on how to love openly—how to give without fear of rebuke, of our fathers heavy hand and slurred words about what Men, what hunters should be. In that moment, I wished he’d met Jess, more than just for a moment. Wished he’d watched her, learned from her like I had. Seen the way she crafted love from thin air and gave it to me, unknowing that it sat in my hands like a pauper would hold a diamond. Awe filled, and unsure.

       But Dean hadn’t met Jess. Had not learned, been taught with soft words and sweet touches that love was not in limited supply—was not a toxic chemical, to be treated like a guilty pleasure. He could only remember the lessons of a man who had lost love the hard way—and who had never remembered how to feel it again. So he didn’t reach over, didn’t pull me against his side and tell me I was ok. That we would be ok. He didn’t say anything at all—but he did stretch his arm across the back of the seat until his fingers brushed the back of my neck, nails catching on strands of hair. I melted back into it, allowing it to seep warmth into me, and even when I fell asleep, even when it must have cramped and been sweaty and uncomfortable—he didn’t pull away until I woke up.

::

    When I was fourteen Dad had left us in a cabin in Montana for nearly four months. In our lives, constantly moving from one place to the next, it was a record; one that was never broken again. In those four months, Dean and I dwelled in the mountain cabin isolated from everyone, apart from our father, who’d come by once every few weeks—and if we were any other siblings, if we’d had any other life, I’m certain we’d have been fighting the entire time. As it was, there were moments when we were seconds away from brutally beating each other, which, with our training, might have been mildly problematic. 

The cabin was larger than most of the places we’d lived in throughout our short lives, with, admittedly only one bedroom—but a full kitchen and decently large bathroom with a wide, deep tub, made for convenience. It had been Bobby’s back when he was just a normal hunter—and he’d told us that the tub was also used for draining deer. I didn’t care. I got to take bubble baths—something that just wasn’t possible in Motel rooms, most of which only had a small boxy shower stall.

      In my whole life, that place was my favorite. I think that’s why when I woke, Dean’s hand still curved around the back of my neck, his fingers rubbing soothing circles into the knotted muscles there, I woke to the slightly dream like sight of the cabin.

     There was something about this cabin that I’d never realized until just then, waking up with Dean’s scent wrapped around me like a thick blanket, blood still staining my clothes from where Mrs. Bronwyn had managed to knick me with her handfuls of rusted nails from the abandoned caretakers shed, my wrist throbbing and my head muzzy with sleep. This place, with the mountain stream in the back, the decent collection of books all set deep into heavy maple shelves and the sturdy brick fireplace that we used to curl up in front of when the nights were too cold to sleep in our beds—was the place I had the first recollection of knowing.

At 14 I hit the major growth spurt—which admittedly was only two inches. I went from 5’0 to 5’2 in a month and a half, suddenly my hips were wider, my face was thinner, I had an actual waist—and I was locked away with my brother, day in and day out, nothing to do but watch the way his back curved when he leaned down to stoke the fire through the last days of winter. There were days when I kept a pen by my side, carefully drawn lines on my palms, wrapping around the backs of my hands and up my wrists—one for each time he said “ _awesome_ ”—days when we laid over each other like blankets draped over a clothes line to dry in the sun, quoting random lines from movies, songs, books. These were the day’s I began to forget all the things I’d learned in public school, all the hours of people watching slowly going to waste as we toiled away, spinning around each other as though in orbit, existing in peace, clashing like war. That year I forgot how to distance myself from him for a while, and found myself wrapped around him in the nights and unwilling to move in the mornings.

      It was in this cabin that I had the first dream that bordered on falling into dangerous territory—it was the first dream I didn’t tell Dean about.

     This place was the only real place I could have seen as home besides Bobby’s—and Dean knew it. Knew that those four months with him, cramped into this cabin with no TV or Phone or way out, just me and my brother—were heaven to me. And I knew that this was his way of saying he was sorry.

      “De...” I whispered, my eyes stuck on the wooden sides of the cabin, trained on the fading curtain I could see through the window. “You didn’t have to bring me here.”

“Yeah, Sam.” He said voice thick. “I did.”

::

    It still smelled the same. Like sawdust and copper and fresh earth—like someone had carved the place right out of the damn ground, like it had been there for only a moment before you’d stepped over the threshold.

    I stood in the middle of the living room, just taking it in. The purple couch was still there, stained and faded and awful, but soft. The fireplace was blackened by time, grey, white ash resting in the grate—our initials carved into the mantle. That time, I was tall enough to reach on my own.

     Behind me, Dean carried the bags to the back of the cabin, to the small bedroom we’d shared all those years ago—with its peeling wall paper, and the rickety iron framed beds. I could clearly remember Dad having nodded at them with some weird sort of approval, like he was proud of them just for being iron. I couldn’t help remembering that, as I had known then, I had never gotten that nod from my Dad. I hadn’t slept in the bed unless I had to, and I was embarrassed to admit that it was out of spite.

      I walked through to the kitchen like I was in a dream, my hands sliding along the sanded down wooden slab. I remembered our first night here, Dean tossing burgers in the one pan we owned, the smell of meat permeating the house while I longed for something green. He’d made awful sex jokes and asked me how I wanted my meat—the innuendo heavy in the arch of his brow.  Before this place, we’d lived two months in northern California, where I’d had friends, been in the Drama club, on the News Paper, in the Choir. Dad had promised a year, but I suppose that it was my own fault for believing him. When Dean had come to get me from school, eighteen and heart wrenchingly beautiful, his dark blonde hair lit up in the sun, he hadn’t been able to look at me. But he hadn’t had to. I’d taken one look at his face and I’d known. I’d ignored Dad the whole way up to Montana, brushing off his attempts at passing the time with reciting spells and Latin phrases, but when Dean set in to make dinner, the door closing behind Dad, it felt like a weight was lifted off of me and I could laugh again.

      Thinking back on it, all the days in this cabin had felt that way. The days went by sometimes without recognition of passing time—we ate when we were hungry, slept when we were tired, and forgot completely about time when the battery in Dean’s watch died. He taught me how to whittle; I taught him how to braid. When the snow melted in the first weeks of March, we crept around the mountain hesitantly, the last few weeks of February still lingering in the pockets of our winter coats. The forests bloomed long before Dad came back to check on us, and found us slicked to our knees in mud, hands clutching bouquets of wild flowers and herbs I’d managed to find, mouths stained with blueberry juice and stretched out like happiness was reforming us, making our faces a home for itself. Spring was filled with watery light and forget-me-nots draped over the bedposts, around the roughhewn table and chairs, wreathed in our hair and around our necks. We spent all the time we could outdoors, breathing in the chill of March and April, and when May burst forth with warmth, we slogged through the streams, fishing with bare hands for the feel of scales against skin more than a full belly. Dean and I formed crude bows and arrows, shooting birds from branches, using the bones to make dream catchers that hung from tree branches, and one, over the divide between the beds we almost never slept in, preferring the meadow about five minutes to the east of the cabin, soft with daises and black eyed Susan’s, lit by the light of the stars, so clear out in the mountain air. With the end of June, heavy with its heat had us splayed over one another, laying for hours in the stream and allowing it to flow around us, came our father, the rumble of the Impala shattering the peace, the _almost_ that hung in the air like a ghost, it’s soft touches lulling me to sleep at night, safe in the illusion of Daisy chains and happiness.

     “You look lost.”

    I turned, my fingertips still sliding over the wood. “I was just thinking about that first night.” I said, my eyes finding his. “I was so angry at him. I wanted him to just leave, just disappear for a while. I wanted to be angry forever, but you just wouldn’t stop. “ Dean smirked, leaning his hip against the counter. “I don’t know how you do it, but you’re so good at fixing me.”

     For a moment, he just looked at me, as though seeing me for the first time. We stood in that kitchen and I could _feel_ us, before, moving through the rooms of this house, laughing, dancing, sparring, living and breathing as though the two moments could press back to back and break through—fall into each other. I stared at him and he stared at me and I felt my love for him well up, felt it fill me to the brim, pressing all my unspoken words against my teeth like they were bars of a jail cell—clawing for freedom that I could never give them.

   “It’s my job to fix you, Sammy.” He said quietly. “It’s the only thing worth doing.”

::

 The dream came again that night. The first one. The one I had for nearly a year straight—the one I’d never breathed a word about to another living soul.

  _The sky was orange and red, the sun sinking—I knew we ought to be heading back inside, before the sun fell completely, we’d have trouble getting back over the hill. I turned, my eyes skating over Dean’s profile, his eyes thrown into shadow by the low hanging branches of the trees in front of us. Something swelled up behind my lips, the sigh that came from them carrying an unspoken dream. He turned towards me slowly, his mouth quirked into a smirk, I felt the dip in my stomach, the heat pooling between my thighs and swallowed thickly._

 _His eyes slowly drifted down my body. I’d never thought much about it, my body was what it was, skinny, bird like but slowly drifting towards the curves of puberty, small breasts developing, hips rounding just enough that it made it hard for all of us to fit in the front seat of the Impala on cold days when the heating didn’t want to work as well as it should. The shape of me had never mattered, in our family all that mattered was if you were fast enough, strong enough, smart enough to get the job done—so, by the end of the day, I’d never really thought about my body—until right now. I flushed. My face felt huge, eyes too wide, I could feel the awkward lines of my body, so different from the flowing curves of the girls I’d watched Dean wrap his hands around, watched fall apart when he spoke in their ears. I was_ not _that girl—not even close._

_Dean shifted close, his body brushing against my side, sparking fire in my veins. The heat of his skin was suddenly the hottest thing I’d ever felt, it was burning through me and filling my bones with this trembling uncertain feeling. I needed air, but couldn’t find any. “W-what are you doing?” My tongue felt numb, slamming against my teeth and slurring my words, my shaking hands moving halfheartedly as Dean pushed himself up on one arm over me, his hand drifting to the curve of my waist. I stared up at him, all the familiarity of Dean crashing around me, the nerves in my stomach calming as he dipped closer, his cheek, rough with the stubble that he was usually too lazy to do anything about, brushing against mine, soothing the trembling of my bones while sending the fire racing from the spot between my legs to all over my body._

_This was like the moments I’d seen on trashy late night television, the images in the Cosmo magazines dad still sometimes bought for me, when he’d pissed me off bad enough to warrant an apology—this was what they all called a_ moment _. Looking at those books, the flickering TV screens in seedy motel rooms, I’d never understood what they meant, but now, with liquid fire streaming through me, the damp fabric of my underwear clinging to me, the urge to press my skin against Dean’s in any way possible—I understood._

_“Sammy...”_

I sat up, gasping. Beside me, Dean rolled over, his skin gleaming in the light of the moon, the flimsy curtain over the window helpless to stop the silver light from touching him. As though even the sky couldn’t resist his beauty.

   The dull throb of arousal had not left with the dream, and I pressed my hands to my face, pushing my fingers into the overheated swell of my cheeks. Much like the first time I’d had the dream, I was disoriented, disappointed in the place it had cut off—my skin still tingled, yearning for Dean’s hands, in any way that I could get them. When I was 14, I had curled around my knees, wide eyes staring sightlessly into the waving flowers of the meadow, willing the steady thrum of _want_ to disappear before I rose, my knees knocking together as the sun washed over us, flowers in our hair, dirt on our skin, wild children.

    I closed my eyes; the urge to cry was so strong, the want of it pressed behind my eyes, leaking down my throat and into the gaping empty space that I knew would never be filled. I swallowed thickly, turning my head to watch Dean breathe. My eyes roved over the bare expanse of his back, the freckles that dusted over his shoulders standing in relief of his pale skin, I could remember being 13, my skinny legs folded under me as my fingers drifted from one to another, lips moving silently, counting the marks, committing the number to memory.

    _650._ My fingers twitched, the ghost of the touch sending trembling, innocent desire racing up my arms. I wanted to slide behind him, trace my fingertips over the pattern, the starry sky on his back, and see how time had changed the constellations there.

   Maybe it was the cabin, maybe it was the memory of the wild children who once lived on this mountain, the need bubbling through me, whatever it was—I slid from my bed, the floors chilled beneath my bare feet, the sheets falling with muted whispers to the ground as I stepped forward, my hands reaching for him.

    Dean turned over, his eyes bleached in the light of the moon. I paused, watching the rise and fall of his chest before I reached for his hand, my palm hovering in open space before his long fingers wrapped around mine and he rose slowly from the white bed clothes.

     With the silver light falling over his face, he could have been eighteen again, with no shadows under his eyes, years falling away like heavy blankets. I stared, my hands aching to rub up his arms, to find the anchor of his neck and cling there as the living memories of us swirled through the halls, leaked in from the forest just beyond the walls of Bobby’s hunting cabin. It felt like the world had fallen away, like this mountain was the only thing left above the water, the only point on any map. My love for him could have drowned the rest of the world, exploded from every flower, every leaf, and every place our bare feet had touched as we raced around the edges of our life, every place our hands gripped this earth and called it home.  He stared back, unafraid of my gaze, and I wondered if he could see me, as I was seeing him. Young, surrounded by the touch of the mountain, wild at heart and broken open, so close to spilling my love for him into the palms of his hands that the fall would feel like flying.

    I pulled his hand, my feet finding the way I’d known so many years before as though I’d never left. My eyes roved his face, finding him all over again, the months since Jess, the years since I’d left, disappearing as though we’d stepped through a door, and he met my gaze, still, as I led him blindly through the house, out the door and through the woods to the meadow. When we breached the tree line, his eyes softened, warmth flowing through them and he reached for me, it felt like slow motion when I fell against him, let his arms wrap around me, carry me to the middle of the meadow. He laid us among the Daisies and the Black Eyed Susan’s and we slept curled together like the wild children we once were.

::

We put Montana in the rear view a week later, rested, healed, and rejuvenated.

   Dean and I had spent the entirety of that week running across the forest floor, bare foot and carefree. I hadn't seen Dean that way since we’d last lived on the mountain—and that seemed like a lifetime ago. We picked berries and dug for ginger roots in the fields, clambered down the craggy hillsides and sunk to our knees in the streams, fresh water fish skittering around our fingers as we grabbed at them. Dean laughed; I laughed—truly laughed for the first time in what seemed like forever. Every day I wrapped him up in my arms as we watched the sun set over the tops of the trees, and thanked him. Whispering into the skin of his shoulder, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” He never asked what for, he already knew I was thanking him for bringing us to this place, the only other place that ever felt like home, that wasn’t the Impalas back seat, or Bobby’s spare room.

     I suppose I could spend the rest of my life telling you our story. I could lean back in this chair, pour myself a glass of Dean’s favorite whiskey and wait for him to come back in the room. The truth of all of this, though, is that I have always loved my brother. I always will. Maybe the time will never come to tell him, but this truth is as real and present as the blood in my veins. I cannot fight my own heart, and maybe I don’t really have to.

    I, Samantha Winchester am in love with my big brother. He might never know the truth. I am content to lay down tonight, three feet dividing me from him, his breathing lulling me to sleep. I am what I am, and I have no more regrets.

     I chose my fate when I slid back into the Impala that night. I knew, somehow, that I would never see Jess or my fairy tale life again. I knew, and I still closed the door after me. I chose, always had chosen, Dean.

   And I guess… I guess that’s just the way it’s always going to be. 

 


End file.
